His hat was on one chair, his umbrella on another, he himself sat, with his hands clasped in front of him, on a little centre table, in an attitude which suggested that he was about to offer prayer. He did not rise as I entered--respectability has not yet worked such havoc with him as that. He stared at me as I went in, solemnly speechless, as if he wondered how I could venture to interrupt the meeting. "Well, Mr. Haines, any news?" I did not care if there was any news, but I did object to his sitting and staring at me like that. "She is dead." "Dead!--You don't mean it!--How do you know?" "It was told me last night in a dream." Among the rest of his little peculiarities, he was one of the most superstitious creatures breathing. In religion, I believe, he called himself a spiritualist. Anyhow, he was always seeing things, and hearing things, and having things revealed to him. Talking to him in some of his moods reminded one of that scene in Richard II. where the poor dear king wants to sit upon a gravestone and talk of epitaphs. "Is that the only reason why you know that she is dead--because it was told you in a dream?" "Do not mock at me. The voice which speaks to me in visions does not lie. I saw a coffin lying in an open grave, and 'Louise O'Donnel' was on the coffin-lid." "You did not happen to see in which particular graveyard that grave might be located." "I did not. But I know that she is dead. My daughter, oh, my daughter!" I had to turn aside to smile. I grant that it was not a subject for laughter--but he was so funny! "And as I looked the coffin-lid was lifted. And, on her breast, there was an open wound." He rose slowly, painfully, inch by inch. He pointed with his right hand towards the floor. "Woman, my daughter has been slain." "Really, Mr. Haines, you are always seeing the most dreadful things in dreams. If I were you I should take less supper." "It's not the supper. It's the spirit." "Well, in that case, I should take less of that." He frowned. "You know very well what I mean. I am not speaking of the spirit of alcohol, but of the spirit of the soul. Now one task is ended. Another is begun. I will be the avenger of blood. Mine will it be to execute judgment on him who has destroyed my daughter's body, having first of all destroyed her soul." "Jack Haines, what nonsense you do talk." "What do you mean, woman?" "My good man, do you think that you awe me by your persistence in calling me woman? I am a woman; but let me tell you in confidence that you strike me as only being part of a man!" "You jeer at me. You are always jeering. You know not what you say." "That is good--from you. Your style of conversation may have been suited to Strikehigh City, where they all were lunatics. But in London it is out of place." "London!--bah!" He threw out his arms, as if to put the idea of London clean behind him. "Precisely. Then if it's London!--bah! Why don't you return to Strikehigh City?"